


Sometimes Corgis Happen

by wyomingnot



Category: Bloom County, Doonesbury
Genre: Corgis, M/M, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-15
Updated: 2013-12-15
Packaged: 2018-01-04 17:35:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1083769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wyomingnot/pseuds/wyomingnot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes your past catches up with you. And sometimes corgis happen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sometimes Corgis Happen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HYPERFocused](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HYPERFocused/gifts).



Steve stared at the envelope in his hand. He was glad he'd had the foresight to sit down to open the piece of mail return addressed Bloom County.

He had no idea. Utterly none. Why would anybody from there contact him? Hell, nobody had even bothered with so much as a farewell drink. And now this? He carefully opened the envelope and read the enclosed card. Read it again. One more time.

"Earth to Steve. Steve Slackmeyer, come in, please." The voice had the distinct note of having been at it for a while.

"Dallas." It was an automatic answer, but it did bring him back into the room.

Steve looked up. Mark had a concerned look on his face and a cup of tea in an outstretched hand. "There you are," he said. "Bad news?"

"That would depend on your definition of bad."

"Did someone die, find Jesus, or vote Republican?"

"Well. When you put it that way." Steve rolled his eyes and took a sip of tea. He raised an eyebrow. "You spiked the tea?"

"You looked like you needed it." Mark gestured at the card still clutched in Steve's hand. "So. What is it?"

Sighing, Steve handed it to Mark, who scanned it with an increasingly confused look on his face.

" A reunion? I've never heard of such a thing."

"Well, no, why would you? Your strip is still running," Steve said and paused for a moment. "And I'm sorry. Because damn that was bitchy. "

"I wasn't going to say anything. But yes." Mark handed the card back. "So. Reunion. Are you going to go?"

"You are kidding, right?" Steve took a long sip and tossed the card aside. 

"Why not? You haven't seen any of those guys in what? 20 years?" Mark asked as he sat down next to Steve.

"Because there will be children and animals, Mark. Talking animals. And they're all a bunch of weirdos." Steve slumped down on the sofa, resting his head on its back and staring up at the ceiling.

"The animals?"

"All of them. Animals. Children. Adults."

"It can't be that bad."

Steve snorted and sat up straight. "Remember at our wedding? That penguin that sat in the back *weeping*?" 

"Yeah." Mark drew out the single syllable.

"He's the one who sent the invite."

Mark opened his mouth, as if to respond, but closed it instead.

"Remember when we met?" Steve asked.

"When you were drinking yourself into a stupor at a gay bar that you didn't know was a gay bar because you couldn't see because you were wearing sunglasses inside?"

"You're never going to let that go, are you?"

"Never."

"Fine. What I'm getting at here, is that you gave a really good speech about trying new things. It was good advice. It got me here. But this..." He paused and held up the invitation. "This isn't a new thing. It's an old thing. And I can go and be all nostalgic about the past... when I was a huge douchecanoe. Or I can just … not."

"And you really don't care what happened to any of them?"

"Care? No." Steve tilted his head thoughtfully. "Though sometimes I do wonder. Not about Bill, though. He's in the news often enough."

"Who's Bill?"

"Bill the Cat." At Mark's blank look, he elaborated. "Orange tabby, perpetually stoned. Ack! You know."

"No. No, I don't. You know, TMZ doesn't actually count as 'news'"

"Whatever." Steve waved a hand dismissively. "The other guys, though. No idea what they've done with the time. Milo – his mother ran the boarding house where I lived – and his friends Binkley and Oliver... they're too old to go play with Calvin and Hobbes or Charlie Brown. Probably smarter than Archie and the gang, but too young to be accepted with that crowd. "

"You don't think maybe they might have grown up?"

"Have you ever met a cartoon that aged without authorial intent?"

"Point. Still. You don't know. You're not the same person you were then. Maybe they've changed too. "

"Probably not. They're probably more weird." Steve set down his empty tea cup. "Okay, it was not the worst time of my life. But it wasn't the best, and it's been a long time, and I just really don't feel the need to pack up and go to the middle of nowhere and stay in a hick town's Holiday Inn to go to a party I don't care about with people, for a given value of 'people', whom I've effectively forgotten.

"Now, if you're all into this idea of going to a reunion for the sake of getting out of town and taking a little vacation, well, fuck a reunion, we can go take a vacation. Somewhere nice. Not Bloom County. I hear Fargo's nice this time of year."

"You think Fargo is nice?"

Steve shrugged. "No idea. But it's got to be nicer than Bloom County."

"You really don't want to go?" Not quite a question. Not exactly a statement.

"I really don't, Mark. I will happily send a note to ol' herring breath letting him know I will not be attending, that I am happily married to one Mark Dallas..."

"Slackmeyer."

"...and that we raise Pembroke Welsh Corgi puppies on a bucolic ranch in New England." Steve stopped and shook his head. "No, wait, that might incite him to drop in for a visit."

Mark raised an eyebrow. "Would that really be so bad?"

"I had the pleasure of sharing living quarters with Opus and Bill on a campaign tour. National Radical Meadow Party ticket back in '84 and '88." Steve raised a hand when Mark cocked his head and leaned forward. "Don't ask. Point is, no way are either of them getting near our home. "

Mark held up a finger. "Okay, fine. But what about *one* Corgi pup?"

…

The day after the skipped reunion...

Steve beckoned Mark over. He pointed to the headline, "Bill and Opus. Will They Run Again?" 

Mark read over his shoulder, "Low-key meeting at the Bloom County Holiday Inn's lounge... attended by an assortment of small woodland creatures and 10 year olds...given that the evening's festivities apparently ended with Bill passed out under the red velour-covered piano, odds are there won't be … Yeah, okay, Steve." Mark dropped a kiss on the top of Steve's head. "You dodged a bullet."

***

epilogue...

"You are so full of shit," was Cutter John's response to Opus' outing of Steve Dallas.

"What he said!" Hodge-Podge chimed in. Oliver Wendell Jones, Milo Bloom, Michael Binkley and Portnoy all nodded in agreement, standing with arms crossed in a unified front. 

"No, I took care of that before I came downstairs." Opus just looked confused. He blinked and looked startled as he figured it out. "Oh, you mean..."  He waddled over to the bar and rummaged through his purse. He held an envelope aloft. "Here! He sent a letter."

Cutter John rolled over and snatched it out of Opus' hands. He was just about to open the envelope when the lounge's doors burst open as Bill the Cat and his entourage noisily made their collective way into the room.

"ACK!" said Bill, and the booze started flowing, all talk of Steve Dallas forgotten.

A few days later, Cutter John found the abandoned envelope while he was sorting laundry. He read the short note, his eyebrows steadily climbing northward. He shook his head in disbelief when he saw the enclosed picture - Steve and another middle-aged man seated on a sofa with their arms across the other's shoulders, a Corgi pup across their laps.

"Good for you, Steve. Good for you."

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to twistedchick and linda3m for beta. Extra thanks to Linda for handholding and cheerleading. It wouldn't have been possible without your support.
> 
> Not strictly canon-compliant, no. But what exactly constitutes canon here? 
> 
> It's not stated explicitly, but in my mind, not only are they cartoon characters... they know they're cartoon characters. The strips are their jobs. I suppose it's not unlike Toon Town. Huh.
> 
> Um, stuff and things. Things and stuff.


End file.
